Come on! The Blue Jays are undefeated when Buck Coats is in the starting lineup.

Well, youneverknow....

There's not all that much I miss about the Elias Baseball Analyst, but there are one or two things. They used to a nice chart for each team showing the team's W-L record for every player at every spot in the starting lineup, both offensively and defensively. Some teams still provide that information, updated each day in the Daily Game Notes. Texas and Toronto, alas, are not among them. So I had to do all of this myself.

It strikes me that this should be quite interesting for the Blue Jays, who haven't exactly been running the same lineup out there on a regular basis. Lyle Overbay is the only thing resembling an automatic every day player - he's been at first base for almost 94% of the team's games. Scott Rolen has been at third base for just over three quarters (76%) of the team's games. The rest has been pretty fluid as they say, or ought to. Rios in RF, Wells in CF, Stairs at DH, Barajas at C each appears more than half the time, less than two-thirds.

Let's begin with the raw W-L numbers for each player, when he's in the starting lineup.

I'm thinking you might have some questions about Vernon Wells and David Eckstein. The team has a better record when they're not in the lineup, and this is despite the fact that the men who take their places in the lineup are inevitably weaker hitters. The Jays are 22-33 with Eckstein at short, 21-15 when Scutaro plays there, and 11-7 when John McDonald gets the starts.

What do the raw defensive numbers suggest? Hard to tell. McDonald has the best raw Range Factor (4.32), while Scutaro and Eckstein are more or less a wash (4.12 and 4.04) respectively.) Scutaro actually has the best Zone Rating (.861) by a considerable margin (McDonald is .814, Eckstein is .804).

McDonald hasn't been catching a break by working Roy Halladay games. Which probably has a lot to do with why the Blue Jays are allowing more
runs per game when McDonald starts at short than when Eckstein or
Scutaro start there. McDonald has started 6 games behind A.J. Burnett (1 at 3b) and 5 behind Jesse Litsch (1 at 3b.) He's started behind Halladay and Marcum three times apiece, twice behind Purcey, and once behind Richmond, and Parrish. (He's missed all of Dustin McGowan's starts.)

Why do we care how many home runs are being hit? Because there's nothing a shortstop can do about them. The Jays pitchers haven't allowed nearly as many home runs when Scutaro is at short as they have when Eckstein is out there. And John McDonald has seen balls go flying into the seats at an even higher rate.

The raw numbers in centre field suggest that Alex Rios has surpassed Vernon Wells as a defensive centre fielder - Rios has a big edge in Range Factor (2.74 to 2.14), and has a better Zone Rating as well (.918 to .868) When Wells is out, most of the playing time goes to Brad Wilkerson. That's hardly an offensive upgrade - in 2008, Wells has been a better hitter than Rios and a much better hitter than Wilkerson. Do the Jays have a better record when Wells is out because of the defensive upgrade?

Well, who the hell knows. We do know this - they've given up a few more runs when Rios plays centre. Home runs have nothing to do with this time:

Buck Coats is funny and all, but Wilkerson is the real MVP by this flawed yet amusing metric. I stupidly erased the calculations, but in his 47 games, they've won 27, or 3.5 more than you would expect given a .500 team. That 3.5 is the highest on the team. I think Barajas and Rolen were 2-3, with Eckstein at the bottom (-4.7 or something ridiculous).

Caught this on my local fishwrap's website. I've never seen this guy break a story or have any inside info so take it as you will:

If you think Cito Gaston's return was big news, wait and see what's coming.

According to a well-placed source close to the Jays of old, former
president and CEO Paul Beeston and former general manager Pat Gillick
may be on their way back to the Blue Jays.

Beeston, often rumoured to be heading to the Leafs, has just as often said no when asked whether he would consider the position.

And just as often, he has told friends that a return to the Jays would be something he would entertain.
http://www.lfpress.com/cgi-bin/publish.cgi?x=blogs&s=blogs&p=23&blog_id=23&s_entry_id=3439&parent_id=&session=&blog_title=London%20@%20Play&control=23&return_xml=

That local fishwrap story is by Dave Langford, who used to be the sports editor at the Globe and Mail in the '90s. He's got lots of chums and contacts from those days of Blue Jay glory so it's conceivable that he's heard something from the old guard. I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand.